Best setup for ripping grainy 576p DVD

[Half-Light Agent]

I'd like to rip a TV series from the mid 80's, from 576p DVD source. Its first seasons were shot on film with quite a bit of grain. Episodes run around 50m. I want to focus on a nice quality which keeps much of the grain and relatively small file sizes between 300 and 400MB. I have a 16GB Intel Core i5-8400 2,80GHz 64 bit Windows 10 with a 6GB 1660 TI. I'd like to keep encoding to at most double the runtime per episode.

Is there (a guide with) a recommended setup of software, codec and settings for this particular type of content?

[SeeMoreDigital]

Out of interest, what is the TV series?

Given that large capacity portable HDD's are pretty cheap nowadays, personally I would back-up each episode from the DVD(s) using MakeMKV into the MKV container, keeping their original (MPEG-2) video and audio streams...

[GMJCZP]

It would be good to know how many 50 minute chapters there are on the DVD to get an idea of how compressed they can be, if the quality is not that good the SMD alternative is logical, if the quality is very good and you want to retain the grain of the Image may be a good choice to encode to X264.

[Half-Light Agent]

The series is Lovejoy, a British TV series which ran from 1986 to 1994, starring Ian McShane as an antique dealing scallywag. It has 73 episodes in total, at around 4 episodes per DVD.

As to size considerations, I managed pretty good HD h264 rips off similar type grainy filmed TV shows years ago in the 300 to 400MB range. I'm beginning to appreciate however, that counter intuitively 576p source material may have to result in bigger files because there's less to work with so more needs to be preserved with the kicker that the output file is going to be stretched more to fit a large screen.

I think I used VirtualDub back when, and if I recall it has a decent preview interface allowing for rapid trial and error. Any reason to steer away from it for h264 or h265 nowadays?

[SeeMoreDigital]

The series is Lovejoy, a British TV series which ran from 1986 to 1994, starring Ian McShane...Although that particular TV show was shot on film, I seem to remember the MPEG-2 PAL DVD's being interlaced, not progressive.

[Half-Light Agent]

Although that particular TV show was shot on film, I seem to remember the MPEG-2 PAL DVD's being interlaced, not progressive.

How would that impact ripping the series?

As to the source material, season 1 disk 1 is a 7,29 GB DVD. The episodes seem to be split in three files: VTS_0x_0.VOB, VTS_0x_1.VOB, VTS_0x_2.VOB. The first is a 154 KB file, the second 1.048.404 KB and the third another file up to 1.039.142 KB.

A MediaInfo analysis of one of the files.

General
Complete name : E:\VIDEO_TS\VTS_02_1.VOB
Format : MPEG-PS
File size : 1 024 MiB
Duration : 26 min 41 s
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 5 364 kb/s

Video
ID : 224 (0xE0)
Format : MPEG Video
Format version : Version 2
Format profile : Main@Main
Format settings : CustomMatrix
Format settings, BVOP : No
Format settings, Matrix : Custom
Format settings, GOP : N=6
Format settings, picture structure : Frame
Duration : 26 min 41 s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 5 065 kb/s
Maximum bit rate : 7 500 kb/s
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 576 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 4:3
Frame rate : 25.000 FPS
Standard : PAL
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Interlaced
Scan order : Bottom Field First
Compression mode : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.489
Time code of first frame : 01:00:00:00
Time code source : Group of pictures header
GOP, Open/Closed : Closed
Stream size : 967 MiB (94%)
Color primaries : BT.601 PAL
Transfer characteristics : BT.470 System B/G
Matrix coefficients : BT.601

Audio
ID : 189 (0xBD)-128 (0x80)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Commercial name : Dolby Digital
Muxing mode : DVD-Video
Duration : 26 min 40 s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 192 kb/s
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel layout : L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 31.250 FPS (1536 SPF)
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 36.6 MiB (4%)
Service kind : Complete Main

Text
ID : 189 (0xBD)-32 (0x20)
Format : RLE
Format/Info : Run-length encoding
Muxing mode : DVD-Video
Duration : 26 min 38 s
Delay relative to video : 960 ms

[wonkey_monkey]

If it's anything like Bergerac - and I don't just mean because it has a regionally-based leather-jacketed protagonist jumping into bed with every posh bird he sees - you'll have a lot of this to deal with (if you feel you need to):

https://i.imgur.com/pKW1XTR.png

I wrote a script to tidy up these kinds of edges but it doesn't seem to work any more.

You might also find the odd episode that didn't telecine well, falling out of field alignment or with blended frames.

[Half-Light Agent]

So, what would be a good setup? h264 rather than h265? Any particular settings? I'm aiming for good quality (grain retention) with files between 400 and 500 MB and about a 2h or less encode per 50m episode. (See PC specs in first post.) Is VD2 still suitable?

[StainlessS]

The episodes seem to be split in three files: VTS_0x_0.VOB, VTS_0x_1.VOB, VTS_0x_2.VOB.
The first is a 154 KB file, the second 1.048.404 KB and the third another file up to 1.039.142 KB.
VTS_0x_0.VOB is a menu video file, not what you want.
Best bet is to use [after ripping to hard drive folder, suggest RipIt4Me], DvdShrink, Re-author mode, and extract each episode into its own new hard drive DVD folder,
then use DGIndex or DGIndexNV to index each one.

EDIT: With DVD Shrink, set to NO Compression, as original, or in settings set to output DVD9 target, where will auto use no compression.

EDIT:
When extracting separate episodes, will likely not re-compress anyways, only does it if does not fit target disk size
[which if settings set to DVD9, ie dual layer, then will never re-compress, ie exactly same as source DVD]
We suggest DVD Shrink as it does away with the necessity to manually trim episodes out from one long contiguous video,
each episode extracted to its own folder [folder NOT ISO file, one at a time, number DVD folders as eg S01E01, S01E02, S01E03, etc].
Also, subtitles are likewise extracted to the target episode DVD folder VOB, again avoiding complications for re-timing etc.
The intended purpose of DVD Shrink is to backup source DVD9 disk to target DVD4 disk, we are not using it here for that intended purpose,
just make sure that you save each episode by itself to a separate DVD folder.

EDIT:
https://i.postimg.cc/7YLX9wV5/Untitled-00.jpg (https://postimages.org/)share images (https://postimages.org/)
Above you have Main Movie about 2:33, ie 8 episodes in one contiguous clip,
or titles 3 through 10, ie 8 episodes of about 20 mins each. [remaining titles being extras]
Select each episode [double click] one at a times and then click Backup, and save episode to DVD folder.
Then click the "X" icon in Left Hand Side "Re-authored DVD" box thing to remove the already saved title name, and repeat for other titles.
Make sure you changed Preferences "DVD Target Size" to DVD-9, so that there is no chance of ever re-compressing extracted VOBs.
Is fast, maybe about 90 seconds for 2 hour movie extract when no re-compress.

There are other ways but above as I prefer.

[Half-Light Agent]

Thank you for adding your suggestion. I appreciate your elaborate reply.

Is there anyone else, who'd like to contribute more options for ripping a 576p box set. I would appreciate some suggestions for software, codec and settings for ripping 80's TV series recorded on grainy film stock, with the aim of achieving good retention of detail at file sizes of about 400-500 MB a piece and a reasonable amount of time to encode. No more than 3h per episode. See first post for PC specs.

[hubblec4]

I personally would preserve the content of the DVD like it is. Only so you have the best quality and minimum amount of time for the job.

[Half-Light Agent]

In the end, I opted for x264 2-pass Encoding with a target size of 1024 MB with VidCoder.

17859

The parameters specified in More Settings are modifications I made to the basic 5.2 level, whose parameters are listed in the Full parameters list below it.

This setup produced quite reasonable results in about 65 minutes per 50 minute episode.

I'd be quite happy to spend about 100 minutes per episode if the quality would increase markedly. If you have any suggestions, I'd like to hear.

[tebasuna51]

I never can recommend encode video VFR, like Handbrake suggest by default.
I always use Constant FrameRate.

[manono]

If you have any suggestions, I'd like to hear.
Definitely CFR as tebusana51 suggests. Also, Constant Quality. In addition to saving a lot of time because you're running a single pass, you'll get all the episodes back all for the same quality, although the file sizes will differ. Just find a quality you like. It's usually suggested that 18 is a good number.

[SeeMoreDigital]

I always use Constant FrameRate.
I very much agree...

[Selur]

yup, cfr causes way less problems,..

[Half-Light Agent]

After further cranking quality over 5.2 defaults by increasing the psy-rd (2,0), aq-strength (1,3) and ipratio (1.4), the 2-pass encodes remain around 70m per 50m episode. I haven't noticed the VFR impact the quality, but I don't have the experience to pick it out. The image quality is good, with good grain retention at the cost of some crispness of the edges. I don't think I can optimize much further. As I understand it, in compression I either have to spend my bits on edges or detail and if I have to pick between the two, in the absence of the original for direct comparison, the slightly fuzzier edges stick out far less than grain mush. If there is a way to improve both edges and detail, at the cost of longer encoding time I would be glad to hear it. As is, I'm spending around 70m per 50m episode. I'd be happy to spend 100m if it would improve the output. I just don't know how to make the encoder squeeze more quality into the bits it has available. Encoding time is already at Very Slow.

Also, is there a definitive specification page for x264, which mentions maximum values for settings?
And, eh, does x264 accept both comma's and periods as decimal separators for all fields?